Jaune Arc: Mercenary
by Dreadphoenix
Summary: After getting kicked out of Beacon due to his forged transcripts, Jaune works hard on getting stronger, on a quest to eliminate a group of Grimm near his village he encounters members of a mercenary corporation, impressed by his skills he gets made an offer to join.
1. Job Offer

**A/N: **As the kingdom where Menagerie is was never named and going off the assumption it's not in Vale or Vytal, I've decided to give it the name of Themis, which several of the OC's in the story originate from. Got the idea of the name from a Greek Titan, just like Atlas is one so is Themis.

And goddamn are names hard to come up with, though actually somewhat trying to follow the naming 'rules' actually helped me a bit.

**Chapter One: Job Offer**

Schling!

Another Beowolf fell to Crocea Mors.

That was the seventeenth Beowolf he'd killed today.

His skills a come a fair way since being kicked out of Beacon last month, he had his father's training to thank for that.

He glanced towards his two unknown allies, they seemed to be faring more than alright.

No time to ponder who they were, another Beowolf made a swipe for him, he ducked quickly, slicing the beast across the abdomen.

That made eighteen.

With no more Beowolves trying to attack him he looked back over to the pair, there were Beowolf corpses scattered around them, the female of the two grinning maniacally, the male had a ghost of a smirk on his face.

Jaune figured they might just have enjoyed the fight a bit too much.

The female who wielded a katana and mounted gun on the left wrist, wore sleek silver armour, and black under-armour, that covered her entire entire body, it was like a feminized more spiky and less bulky version of Cardin's armour Jaune noted, though it lacked any sort of insignia on the chest plate, the gauntlets also covered the hands and fingers in armour making them seem claw like, the thighs were also more armoured and the boots had heels.

Physical appearance-wise the woman had black hair, red eyes, and dark skin.

He moved onto focusing on the male who had wielded a now sheathed cutlass, he _appeared_ to be mainly unarmoured unlike the female, clad in black, he wore a military long-coat, leather gloves, amber jeweled ring on the right index finger, combat trousers with knee pads, and knee high military boots, Jaune suspected he probably had armour beneath the coat.

Physically, the man was likely fairly muscular judging on the build, he had black hair, pale skin, and fiery amber eyes.

"Not bad kid, not bad at all." The man says looking at the dead Beowolves around Jaune, a mildly impressed look on his face.

"Aha thanks." Jaune replied sheepishly, not all that used to being complimented on his combat skills. "Though I'm not sure I would have survived if you two hadn't of turned up."

The man quirked an eyebrow. "Ho? I doubt you'd come out of the fight as well as you are now but… I think you might have been able to pull it off."

"You really think that?" Jaune asks surprised.

The man shrugs. "Well yeah, you've got some real talent and potential there kid, I'll give you that. Tell me, what's your name?"

"Jaune Arc, short, sweet, rolls off the tongue, ladies love it." He grins.

The two strangers chuckle.

"Arc you say?" The woman finally speaks up, curiosity in her voice. "As in hero family Arc?"

"Yep, the one and only, well I think we're the only Arc's there are."

She nods. "Well since you've introduced yourself I'm Sari Argento, and this is my squadmate and General, Darius Fall."

Darius Fall? The name seemed familiar to him.

"So why is someone like you out here and not at a place like Beacon Academy or something?" Darius asked.

"Well I… Kinda got kicked out, my skills weren't up to scratch at the time and my transcripts were faked, I've been training with my father ever since I got booted." He says sheepishly again.

"Hm, they should have still seen the potential, their loss and my possible gain I suppose, I'm making you an offer, kid." He says handing Jaune a business card.

Jaune takes a look at the card, it read '_Wescott Security Consulting_'.

"If you're interested in doing something else asides from training and protecting your village, give that number a call, if you're worried about missing out on training we also have several people, myself and Sari included, that I'd wager could teach you _a lot_."

Jaune nods. "Thanks, I'll certainly consider it."

"Well this is where we part ways I suppose, it's been a pleasure meeting you Jaune and we hope you take the offer." Sari says smiling. "Come on, General, I believe we're done here."

"Indeed, hope to hear from you soon, kid."

"Yeah, see you around maybe!" Jaune calls as they leave and begins heading back to the village.

* * *

><p>Jaune lay awake on his bed, thinking back to last month when he got kicked out.<p>

His team, bless them, had argued valiantly against Goodwitch but to no avail, it seemed she was set on getting rid of him.

He still kept in contact with them though, Pyrrha especially.

Due to the teams already being decided there was no replacement for him in the group so the NPR often ended up being sent to support their neighbors, team RWBY, on assignments.

He sighed, missing his friends.

He grabbed the business card and started at it.

Darius Fall…

There!

He remembered where he had heard the name, it was in one of the history classes on the Faunus Rights Revolution, or the Faunus War was its alternate name.

Darius Fall was known to those few that knew about him, as one of Themis's more brutal General's, and Themis had several of those, while the man held no prejudice towards the Faunus unlike many others at the time, he worked off the logic that if they were all dead there would no longer be a threat and so him and those under his command had killed hundreds of Faunus, that was up until General Lagune, who was viewed as one of the more reasonable General's, screwed up at Fort Castle and the Themesian government decided to work out a peace agreement with the Faunus and actually give them rights.

Due to his attitude and modus operandi, Darius had earned the nickname of 'Genocide General'.

Though despite it Darius Fall never gained much publicity or attention, the Themesian government went to lengths to suppress information like that and information on any other atrocities it was thought to have committed, though Beacon being as influential as it was, Jaune was not surprised to see it have access to such knowledge.

Sure Jaune could see the reasoning behind General Fall's actions, it was true that if all the revolutionaries were dead, there would be no revolution as there would obviously be no one left to cause one, but that didn't hide the fact that what he did was _incredibly _extreme.

Still he pondered, the man didn't _seem_ all that bad he had to admit.

So much for his usual black and white thinking.

The General probably thought he was doing what was necessary for the nation's security.

He rubbed his eyes, tired, he'd maybe think on it more in the morning and do some research on Wescott Security Consulting too, and maybe call Pyrrha.

* * *

><p>It was after lunch, Jaune was digging up information on WSC.<p>

He'd found that the company was a subsidiary of Wescott Industries which was something of a competitor to the Schnee Dust Company.

While Wescott Industries owned the company, General Fall was responsible for running it having pitched the idea a while back to the CEO of Wescott Industries, Adrianna Wescott.

Most of its employees, like Darius, originated from the Themesian military, many of whom also like Darius were veterans of the Faunus War and were actually troops who were under his command during the war.

So it seemed the General could obviously inspire some degree of loyalty from those under his command, the fact that they were willing to leave their nation's military and join him and his company somewhat showed that.

The company did a variety of operations, dealing with Grimm, providing support to police, protecting VIP's, counter terror operations against organizations like the White Fang, protecting corporate and governmental facilities, the list went on.

All the research was good, however he had to weigh up the pros and cons, so what worked in the company's favour, and what worked against it, and was he willing to overlook the against it part.

So there was obviously a good opportunity for training, the General had offered to train him and he assumed the man had skill due to being able to easily kill large amounts of Beowolves with his squadmate.

He would unlikely be stuck in one place all the time, Wescott Industries was a large company and had influence up and down Remnant meaning he would probably be able to see the world a fair bit, while he liked his home the same place did get dull after a while and even if he didn't move around much just getting out of the village and back to Vale or something would be good enough for him.

The company only took contracts from governments and corporations, while he knew those things could still give questionable contracts at least the contracts wouldn't be coming from criminal or terrorist organizations.

Also, unlike if he was to reject the offer and eventually strike out into the world on his own as a lone wolf, he was guaranteed to have teammates in the company, people would have his back and he'd have theirs, there would always be someone looking out for him.

Finally, not a big deciding factor but it was certainly something to note, he would be getting _paid_.

So the cons.

Knowing what he knew about General Fall and while he didn't blame the troops who were under the General's command for following orders he knew they could carry out questionable orders and _had _done so, meaning that the company potentially had many morally questionable people in it, the General obviously included.

Now many of these people were likely just following orders and equally likely knew what they were doing was bad, hell the General probably knew what he was doing was bad but figured it was necessary, regardless of the reasons it still happened, now the real question was, was he willing to overlook it?

Next up was the prospect of killing, this was the big one in his opinion.

While the information he had gathered generally gave him the impression that unless explicitly ordered to, it was down to the contractor's discretion about what was to be done about potential threats and whatnot, this obviously meant that in a situation it was down to his judgement on how he dealt with someone, meaning he didn't _have _to kill people, he could knock them unconscious for instance.

Now he was fully aware that his teammates could resort to killing, and he figured he could handle that, no, what worried him was being potentially forced into a situation where _he_ would _have _to kill.

He didn't doubt that training with members of the company and spending time with them would probably end up eventually desensitizing him in the long term, it was the short term he was worried about.

Ultimately, it came down to doing what was necessary, when pushed Jaune _knew_ he could step up and ultimately do what had to be done, his interactions with Cardin back in Forever Falls while on a smaller level mirrored that.

At the end of the day Jaune believed he could do what was necessary and deal with the responsibility that came with it.

If there's one thing his time at Beacon had taught it him, it was taking responsibility and standing up and doing what you needed to do.

Well, this whole job offer thing had certainly done a good job at getting him thinking.

Screw it, he'd take the job, the call to adventure was well calling him.

At the end of the day it was a job, and if he didn't like the job, he could just quit.

He picked up his scroll, he had a call to make.


	2. Day One Introductions

**A/N:** Wow, thanks for all the positive feedback guys, really appreciate it.

In response to Mastermind's question: Will the company be like the RDA, actions first words never? Well, the main focus is about a nice, good guy, and his interactions/friendships with a bunch of ruthless mercs, and well since they're ruthless mercs there's a decent chance it could happen, in fact with one of them it's pretty much guaranteed to happen.

**Chapter Two: Day One Introductions**

Jaune examined the cigarette smoking man he was following through Vale towards the airship docks.

Eric Corson was his name.

He had dirty blonde hair, dark blue eyes, and light tanned skin, he looked older than Darius and Sari, another Themesian veteran most likely, he did carry himself with a certain weariness Jaune noted.

Slung across his back was a large sniper rifle, he also carried a handgun, and a wakizashi short katana.

Clad in black, which was the primary colour scheme for Wescott Security Consulting, he wore fatigues with boots, knee, leg, arm, and elbow padding, a utility belt, combat vest with ammunition pockets, and combat gloves.

They approached a large airship, Jaune could see soldiers with similar sorts of combat gear to Corson patrolling the outside walkways.

"Right, so first thing's first you'll be having a training exercise to determine your combat skill, you're going to be pitted up against the second youngest member of the command squad, originally the youngest but we've got you now."

Jaune nodded. "Alright, you wouldn't be able to tell me what to expect would you?"

"Anna Dulas is her name, can't tell you anything about her combat skills and whatnot, that's for the test, though I can tell you she's a sadist, and ex-Themesian Black Ops, so really, do be on your guard."

"Right…" Jaune replied a bit nervously, what was he getting into?

"That said, like any other members of the company she'll look out for you, and we expect you to do the same for us, we're sort of like one big semi-dysfunctional family really."

That helped put his worries at ease slightly. "Okay, good to know, are you staying to watch this?"

"Nah I've got some errands to run but I'll no doubt see you later, we're both command squad after all and someone needs to keep an eye on you, rookie." He chuckles.

Jaune smiles. "Well I appreciate it."

"Glad to hear it, this is where I leave you." He says standing outside the training room door. "Head on in, I'll see you around."

Jaune nods heading inside.

* * *

><p>Inside the room he finds two people, General Fall, and a woman.<p>

A _scary_ woman.

She gave off a dominatrix style vibe and had a smirk plastered across her face.

Jaune was intimidated, very much so, was this Goodwitch all over again?

She had greyish-silver hair, violet eyes, pale skin, and was fairly tall and slender.

Her primary outfit colour was black, with violet being the secondary trim colour, she wore lightly armoured thigh high boots, a short combat skirt, the short length reminding him of Pyrrha's, light chest armour, and opera length gloves with wrist bracers.

Her weapon? A deadly looking military sabre.

Unlike Sari who was clearly more of a heavy hitter, this person, he assumed Anna, was meant to be quick and agile, though Sari was still pretty damn fast from what Jaune could remember.

"In case Corson neglected to inform you, this is Anna Dulas." Darius says.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Jaune." She says, voice surprisingly a friendly tone.

"H-hey miss Dulas." Jaune says nervously.

"Now this fight isn't about winning or losing, it's about trying to gage your combat abilities, so I want you to give it your best shot."

"I understand." He nods.

"Good." A holographic display with two Aura bars appears to the side of the combat area displaying his and Anna's Aura's. "Whenever you're ready then."

Jaune stepped up, taking a stance opposite her, locking eyes, a serious look on her face.

He doubted he could beat her, but he sure as hell wasn't gonna screw around like when he fought Cardin for the first time, he had no idea what he was doing back then, but now…

He was going to try his damn best to not make things easy for her, after all the General did want him to try his best anyway.

She seemed to be waiting for him to make the first move so he decided to take the initiative, rushing forward he made a right horizontal swing at her.

She reacted suddenly, swiftly blocking it with not much difficulty, she then followed up with a counter.

He managed to block her attack just in time by turning Crocea Mors into its shield form.

_Clang!_

Her blade rebounded off it.

He felt the impact, despite her physique it had a large amount of power behind it.

She didn't continue to whale on him though, unlike Cardin he figured she was someone who favoured skill over brute force.

She was back in a stance again, it reminded him of Weiss, no time to think about that though, she could come to him this time.

She bolted forward, she was damn _fast_, but he was ready.

He deflected the blow again, switching to sword form he went back on the offensive with several swipes.

She saw them coming though and had a counter.

Jaune felt a hard, powerful hit land on his left shoulder shoving him back.

He gasped as he recovered, she'd got him with a feint.

That one blow had a noticeable effect on his Aura, still plenty left though, he was a pretty resilient guy after all.

He wasn't going to go down this early on, no way, he had to try harder.

He sucked in a breath, the two of them clashed again, Jaune just about keeping up.

An opening?

He narrowly missed with a swing to her abdomen, she'd quickly angled herself around him and had sliced down on his back causing him to fall forward.

He instantly rolled back over dodging another hit.

The back shot had done a good deal of damage on him, dropped down to just below 3/4s.

The continued to trade blows rapidly, Jaune desperately trying to keep up.

Another attack came arcing down on him, he swiftly shifted to the left swinging quickly for her hip.

The hit connected with quite some force, it knocked her off balance causing her to stumble, she gasped almost erotically and recovered quickly leaping back from him creating distance between the two.

The look in her eyes was mild amusement, the look on her face?

It had changed from that serious look to a smirk again.

It gave him chills.

Suddenly she was upon him, her saber swinging rapidly.

Jaune realised that she'd been holding back.

He began to lose confidence.

The blows came in too fast, he couldn't keep up with the hits, they weren't heavy hits but they came in fast and caused damage so rapidly they may as well have been.

His Aura was dropping into the red.

He couldn't go down without doing something, _no way_.

She was coming in for the final blow, the _coup de grâce_.

The blade never hit him.

It impacted with something and was flung out of Anna's hand across the arena.

Jaune was covered in a white shield.

He noted it was draining the last of his Aura.

The look on Anna's face was totally worth it though, that pure _shock_.

He collapsed smiling and blacked out from exhaustion.

* * *

><p>Jaune awoke in a hospital bed feeling rejuvenated.<p>

"Ah, good to see you awake, Mr. Arc." A voice to his right said.

He looked over seeing a man in a white lab coat, black leather gloves, black flat ballistic vest, formal shirt, red tie, formal slacks and shoes.

Physical appearance, well his hair was the first thing Jaune noticed.

It was purple, and stood up at the front in a way that made it seem like a wave.

He had a light complexion, athletic build, reddish brown eyes, and rectangular glasses.

"I'm Doctor Morado Valkea, squad medic, and it seems you just fully unlocked your Semblance, congratulations." He said jovially.

"Ah thanks, Doc." Jaune says smiling at him.

The door to the infirmary opened and in walked…

Anna Dulas.

Jaune all of a sudden didn't feel so good.

She nods at the Doctor. "Mora."

"Please don't call me that, Annabelle." He sighs.

"Yeah that will never happen." She smirks, taking a seat next to Jaune.

"So, um… hi?" He says weakly.

"Relax, I'm not going to do anything, just here to check up on you, you really pulled something out of the bag there at the end." She smiles reassuringly at him.

"Yeah apparently I fully unlocked my Semblance." He says relaxing.

"It wasn't already?"

"Well, it was partially, I have one of my teammates back at Beacon to thank for that."

"I see, the General was impressed with your ability, though it would seem that while that shield is incredibly strong, maybe even impenetrable, it burns up energy quick."

"Yeah I did note my Aura shot down when I used it."

"Right, so you're going to need to build up more endurance if you're going to use it more often."

He didn't like where this was going.

"Now for combat training you'll be training with a random member of the squad whenever scheduled, but for endurance, that's all me." She says giving him a predatory grin.

Oh jeez, this wasn't good.

"Like in our fight, I expect you to give it your best, so no slacking off." She says seriously now.

"Yes ma'am!" Jaune says saluting.

"Good, we'll start tomorrow." Giggling at him before she leaves.

"Well you certainly have my sympathy." Valkea says. "I've been through her endurance training, it's worth it in the long run though."

Jaune didn't doubt it, he still wasn't looking forward to it though.

* * *

><p>"Get on the floor, now." Said a muffled threatening voice.<p>

Jaune had no idea what was going on, one minute he'd been exploring the Wescott airship since he'd recovered from his fight, the next, this.

There was the sound of a gun being cocked at the back of his head.

"Oh and drop the weapon too, slowly, or I'm throwing you out the window."

Jaune complied, putting Crocea Mors to the side and lying on the floor, hands on his head.

"Boss, I've captured some blonde haired kid wandering around the ship." He radioed.

There was a sigh at the other end of the radio.

"What's his name?" General Fall's voice buzzed back.

"Well I don't damn well know, I didn't ask the little punk, you want me to shoot him?"

"No, Fuego, I don't want you to shoot him, I think I may know who it is, but ask his name just to be sure."

"Fine, name?" He commands at Jaune.

"Jaune Arc."

"Well, as I suspected, you've gone and detained our new guy, didn't you get the memo?"

"Wait this is the new guy? Oh! Sorry man." He quickly says to Jaune helping him up.

"Eh no harm done, I could have actually been an intruder for all you knew." Jaune says brushing it off and taking a look at this Fuego fellow.

He was huge, biggest person he'd ever seen in fact, not fat huge either, it had to be muscular huge, and fully clad in gear, no sign of any skin showing.

He had a dark grey ceramic helmet that covered his entire head with a grate where the mouth was and electronic orange eye lenses glaring at him, instead of combat fatigues he wore dark orange bunker gear, though it seemed designed to be thinner and lighter than the usual stuff, with dark grey heavy armour padding around the wrists, elbows, shoulders, body, knees, legs, thick dark grey gloves, and steel capped black boots.

The weapon he wielded?

A large bulky gun, top barrel was for no doubt shooting Dust rounds, very large Dust rounds at that, the bottom barrel was cylindrical and had a transparent red Dust capsule slotted into it.

Jaune didn't know what it did, and he had a feeling he didn't _want _to know what it did.

There was one other weapon the man carried, it was a sheathed White Fang Scimitar attached to the man's utility belt, Jaune suspected he'd pilfered it in combat with them, it didn't seem unlikely that the group would engage them if they were picking up contracts from Vale's police.

"Name's Alex Fuego, I'm the squad heavy, I like burning stuff." He said introducing himself.

"Nice to know? I'm Jaune Arc, as you know." Jaune figured the guy may have a few screws loose.

"Well it's good to meet ya newbie, you'll do great here." He was friendly though, so that was a bonus, and if a person was nice to Jaune, he'd be nice to them.

"There you two are." A voice said interrupting them.

It was Sari.

"We've got contract to deal with a small group of Ursa's causing trouble, would you two care to join me? I figured we could make this Jaune's first outing with the company."

"Well ya know me, I'm in for sure, I'd never pass up a chance to kill stuff, how about you, newbie?"

Well whatever had healing had been applied to him in the infirmary had worked like a charm and he was back to full strength.

"Sure I'm game." He nodded.

"Good!" Sari said happily. "Lets get to the hangar then, there's a Bullhead waiting."

"Hold on!" A voice which belonged to Doctor Valkea called. "Mind if I join you?"

"Not at all, the more the merrier." Sari replied as they began to head to the hangar.

* * *

><p>The scent of burning flesh was thick in the air.<p>

"Yeah that's right! Burn you shits!"

Well, Jaune had seen what that underslung barrel of Fuego's gun did.

It was a freakin' _flamethrower_.

It was letting off huge gouts of flame, the Grimm creatures had actually taken to _avoiding_ Fuego.

Didn't stop Fuego killing them though, he just switched to the weapon's standard fire which punched large holes through the creatures and also set them alight.

That was assuming the rounds didn't fly out the other side of the Grimm's body.

If the creatures could scream, they probably would.

"Just because you're not close to me doesn't mean I can't burn you!"

Sometimes the guy would just throw one of the flamethrower Dust capsules at them and shoot the damn thing so it exploded.

Doctor Valkea seemed to be fairing alright.

The man primarily used a custom SMG with ice infused Dust rounds, he also carried a handgun and kukri knife.

Sari of course was hacking away at foes with her katana, limbs flying everywhere, blood spurting everywhere, a look of joy on her face.

Yes, Jaune seemed to be surrounded by psychos, even Valkea wore a smirk on his face as he gunned down Grimm.

The regular soldiers who had joined them seemed pretty sane though.

They were sticking at a distance due to their use of mid-ranged weaponry, they were more used to Human on Human or Human on Faunus combat.

One of them had used a rocket launcher to blow and Ursa Major apart, that had been pretty cool.

Jaune stabbed a Ursa in the heart.

The group of Grimm was a lot bigger than anticipated, way bigger in fact, it had just been Ursa's but then by chance a pack of Beowolves had stumbled upon them, the fight had escalated from there.

Things weren't bad though, the group was powerful and most of the creatures had been dealt with.

A Beowolf near him had its head blown off by Fuego's rifle, leaving a burnt stump.

All in all the mission had gone quite well, no real casualties on their side, couple of wounded but Valkea took care of any problems.

His scroll buzzed.

He opened the message and read it.

1,300 Lien combat pay?!

Well, things were looking up all of a sudden.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **So there we have it, the squad:

Darius Fall - Leader

Sari Argento - Second in Command

Morado Valkea - Combat Medic

Alex Fuego - Heavy (Biggest person in the squad)

Anna Dulas - Fast/Light Assault

Eric Corson - Sniper (Oldest person in the squad)

Jaune Arc - Rookie (Youngest person in the squad)

Coming up in the next few chapters I have a nice arc planned involving a big mission to Vacuo where Wescott Industries will be headquartered, gonna introduce a couple of new Grimm (one based off a certain creature from Dune), and a new enemy faction to fight, that will go on for a bunch of chapters and then it's back to Vale I'd say.

Oh yeah, private military contractors can make $400-$600 a day if I remember correctly, not sure they get additional combat pay but since this is a fictional setting, why the hell not?


End file.
